writesdave's reviews
359 reviews

Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

The Perfection Point: Sport Science Predicts the Fastest Man, the Highest Jump, and the Limits of Athletic Performance by John Brenkus

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States by Dave Zirin

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

A compilation of Zirin's columns from The Nation magazine, it feels dated now but the overarching message remains—there's more to sport than meets the eye. Zirin champions principled athletes for taking their stands and does so in an angry-yet-articulate and entertaining way. He dives deep into protests from the past and present, needles the mass media for indulging in hagiography and praises the rare athlete with a worldview.

Sometimes Zirin gets bogged down in being clever and quippy, and you can't blame a modern sportswriter, raised on ESPN SportsCenter, for going for the gag and descending occasionally into minstrelsy. But Zirin is a sports writer for the times, a voice we all need to rise above bread and circuses.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

adventurous challenging lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

As with "Gatsby," I recognize the historical importance of this novel and the value of having youngsters read it from that perspective, but I did not have the transcendent literary experience promised with this book. I didn't laugh once (that could betray the long-ago departure of my sense of humor), and even for an 11-12-year-old the antics were ridiculous. The final third was a slog. Nowhere near as fun as "Tom Sawyer."

Twain can tell a story, though.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Party Out of Bounds: The B-52's, R.E.M., and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia by Rodger Lyle Brown

emotional informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.75

I've lost track of the number of music-in-a-time-and-place books I've read, but I'm always interested to see what conditions (social, cultural, educational, environmental) gave rise to a "scene."

Here, we learn the origins of the silly, arty pop of the B-52s, and the high-concept pop-rock of R.E.M., as well as a few others that should have made it, if you ask those in the scene. No real surprises here if you lived through that period of time anywhere, and if you paid attention to culture at large; admittedly, I didn't hear R.E.M. until "Shiny Happy People" and "Losing my Religion," and I never encountered the B-52s until "Love Shack." 

Okay, one surprise. Athens hasn't always been the sophisticated model college town of its repute, and only after the emerging bands thrust it in the spotlight did the cosmopolitan haze descend thanks to the masses crowding the town, hoping to catch a glimpse of The Next ™ or be a part of it themselves.

Under the current circumstances, I cracked this one open to be transported, and Brown did just that. He might have needed another edit, and he admitted his memory of some of those nights is hazy, but even if he wasn't sure he knew exactly who to ask, like a good researcher. 

The simple explanation comes at the very end in the afterward—Athens is a college town with a yearly influx of enthusiastic, courageous, optimistic and creative people, pushing each other to greater heights in their art. You could say that about any college town, really, but for some reason Athens really caught that wave in the late 70s and early 80s. Brown skillfully brings it all to the page.

Bleachers by John Grisham

dark emotional lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

emotional funny reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will by Judith Schalansky

adventurous informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

In a world presently closed off in large swathes yet begging for exploration, Judith Schalansky's richly researched and wonderfully presented book hits the spot. Her personal story feeds the narrative (see elsewhere) and inspires anyone else who has ever sat for hours with an atlas open on your lap, working over the pages with your fingers and imagining what those places look like in 3D. This book takes you literally to the ends of the earth.

These days I seek out books with a strong sense place that indulge wanderlust, hence the name of the list where I've chronicled this book. This book checks both boxes and will remain a staple on my shelf.